No Life Threat To Conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, He Is Desperate And Cunning Criminal: Delhi Police To SC

Senior advocate R Basant, representing Chandrashekhar, said he would like to a file a reply to the Delhi Police's affidavit which was served to them "at the last minute".

The Delhi Police on Monday opposed in the Supreme Court conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar's plea for shifting him to a prison outside the national capital, calling him a "desperate and cunning criminal" who has no respect for law.

It alleged Chandrashekhar is abusing the process of law to further his crime syndicate and levelling baseless allegations against the Delhi Police and the central government.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi, which is hearing a plea by Chandrashekhar and his wife Leena Paulose seeking transfer to any jail outside Delhi owing to alleged threat to their lives, was told by advocate Rajat Nair, appearing for the Centre, that the Delhi Police has filed an affidavit on his petition.

Senior advocate R Basant, representing Chandrashekhar, said he would like to a file a reply to the Delhi Police's affidavit which was served to them "at the last minute".

The bench posted the matter for further hearing in January and asked Basant to file a rejoinder affidavit.

In its affidavit, the Delhi Police said, "That the accused/petitioner number-1 is desperate and cunning criminal, involved in various offences. It is clear that he has no respect for the law and does not hesitate to disobey the orders of even the Supreme Court of India.” It said Chandrasekhar, who is in judicial custody since 2017, had made such claims in the past, too, with the sole aim and intention to be able to secure a transfer out of Delhi as he is unable to run his crime syndicate from inside the jail.

"That the petitioner is abusing the process and august forum and remedy under Article 32 of the Constitution of India in order to further his criminal syndicate and in order to achieve the same, baseless allegations have been levelled against the respondents," it said.

The Economic Offences Wing of Delhi police which is investigating the cases against Chandrashekhar said he has repeatedly committed offences including money laundering during his incarceration by subverting the legal system and prison rules with the help of his knowledge of technology and his abilities to con people.

"It is submitted that there is absolutely no threat to the life of the petitioners inside the Tihar/Mandoli jail and the petitioner is only making up an excuse to repeat his modus operandi in some other prison where the prison officials would not be familiar with his antics," it said.

The Delhi police added, "It is also pertinent to mention here that accused Sukesh Chandrashekhar is not sitting silently even in judicial custody. Total three separate criminal cases have been registered against him while he was running in judicial custody period and in each case, he tried to manage the whole system and disobey the law…".

Referring to various criminal incidents in which Chandrashekhar has been allegedly involved, the Delhi police said it has prima facie emerged that the accused, during his police custody remand in 2017, misused the phone of a constable for making a call to a special judge impersonating an apex court judge and asked him to grant him bail.

It alleged he even impersonated an IAS officer, working as the private secretary to Union minister for Law and Justice asking the Tamil Nadu special police commandant to extend favour to him.

Police claimed despite being in custody, he has been repeatedly found using mobile phones, impersonating high ranking government officials, and extorting hundreds of crore of rupees.

"The present petition seeking his transfer to another prison is yet another ploy to repeat the same misdemeanors in another jail facility and exploit the loopholes where the jail authorities are not familiar with his innovative methods of con-manship," it said.

The affidavit said the Tihar Jail/Mandoli Jail (Delhi Prisons) has already deployed suitable and sufficient measures and mechanism to check and contain any possibility of the accused repeating his misdemeanours from within the jail.

It added the Mandoli jail has also taken steps to thwart any future possibility of misuse of jail facilities.

"For any new prisons to put in place similar measures or even to come to terms with the sophisticated means of conmanship by the petitioner number-1 (Chandrashekhar) will take time and transferring the petitioners to any other prison would be hazardous as the petitioners number-1 is likely to repeat the same mischief and offences from within the jail as he has done on repeated occasions in the past," it said.

The affidavit said all steps have been taken to plug the loopholes in Mandoli Jail and strong measures initiated against the colluding officials.

"The jail authorities have also undertaken that all measures will be taken for the protection of the life of all inmates," it said, adding the present plea has been moved only with the "ulterior motives" to get him (Chandrashekhar) out of the Mandoli jail, so as to be able to have the possibility to setup a fresh nexus with jail officials elsewhere in order to tamper with evidence, influence/threaten witnesses and further his organised crime syndicate.

It is in the interest of justice that he stays in Mandoli jail, the affidavit added.

Chandrasekhar was arrested in April, 2017 for allegedly taking money from AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran on the pretext of helping him retain 'two-leaves' symbol for his faction after a split in the party. 

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